Week 5 MLS Picks
The goalless streak is over! After Emmanuel Latte Lath broke the seal for us last Saturday afternoon, we finally recorded our first profitable week of the season at the books. No time to rest on our laurels, the climb back towards even rolls on!
The official league injury report for Saturday’s games came out Friday afternoon, let’s dive into the Week 5 picks.
Pick’Em Entry of the week
Each match week, we’ll have a pick’em entry for you to tail if your heart desires. This week we’re playing on Underdog Fantasy. If you want to play along with us at Underdog, you can sign up today using this link. Let’s get to the board and build a winner!
It’s another CONCACAF week of potential land mines to wade through, as the Round of 16 was completed on Thursday night. We’ll begin this week’s entry by attacking one of those teams in Nashville SC, who had a thrilling 1-1 draw against Inter Miami that sent them through to the quarterfinal round on away goals. Orlando City SC is in town and while Nashville is still deep enough to win with a rotated squad, we’ll pick on them with Martin Ojeda. His shot prop is set at 2.5 this week and Ojeda has averaged 3.2 shot attempts per 90 in his 6,666 career MLS minutes, including a 3.52 shots per 90 rate last season. He was over this number in 19 of 30 MLS regular season starts in 2025 and with the plus-one multiplier, is our first leg this week.
Then we’ll use a pair of goals allowed options, first picking on Ethan Horvath of the New York Red Bulls, who are on the road to take on Charlotte FC on Saturday evening. While the home side is just -130 to score two or more goals, they’re coming of a dominant home campaign in 2025 where they recorded multiple goals in 12 of 17 games at Bank of America Stadium. With just Henry Kessler on the injury report, Charlotte should be at full strength in the attack and ready to test a Red Bulls defense that hasn’t faced a significant challenge yet in 2026.
Closing it out by backing Bradley Scott Stuver against the high powered LAFC offense. Like we talked about on Wednesday’s Episode 292, we expect some rotation from the Black and Gold after a congested month of CCC play that most recently saw LAFC advance past Alajualense in Costa Rica late Tuesday night. Not only is LAFC -145 to score fewer than two goals in this match, it’s not something they’ve done against Austin FC in regular season play in multiple years. The last time LAFC recorded two or more goals against Austin FC in a regular season match was October 7, 2023. Austin has proven their ability to stifle the LAFC offense and with the elevated chance of some rotation, we’ll take Stuver to keep that streak going.
Using the standard payout selection (and the 40% profit boost token dropped in users accounts on Friday) on Underdog, this 3-pick entry will payout a prize of 10.01x your entry fee if successful.
We’ve added some additional plays that can be substituted in place of the props given above if you miss lock for one of those games, want to make additional entries or one of the given options doesn’t start. The additional plays this week are listed in order of preference and we’re fine using these props in any entry.
Sean Johnson O 1.5 goals allowed (1.04x)
Mateusz Bogusz O 2.5 shots attempted (1.04x)
Timo Werner O 0.5 shots on target (0.97x)
Jonathan Bamba O 0.5 shots on target (0.99x)
Results
Last Week: -1.0 U
Season: +3.32 U
Week 5 Picks
Columbus Crew
ML +110
Very simple case for backing the Crew on Saturday afternoon. Toronto FC’s DP midfielder Djordjie Mihailovic is on the bench with an illness leaving a massive role to fill with no clear replacement from a talent perspective. The home crowd should be fired up to see new DP striker Josh Sargent get his first start for the club, but the Crew are just simply the better team, even if Mihailovic was in. We’ll back Columbus to bring home three points near even money.
Orlando City
ML +475
Nashville SC is one of the hottest teams in the league through the early parts of the season and some pundits have been making a case for them as the best side in MLS through four weeks. After their thrilling midweek fixture where they eliminated Inter Miami from CCC, we could see Nashville rotate again as they did last Saturday against Columbus when they snuck out a 1-0 win on the road thanks to a late Hany Mukhtar goal in second half stoppage time. But this Orlando City SC side is not just coming into this game after winning their first game of the season, they’re also a team with a proven track record of stealing wins in Nashville. In fact, Orlando City has won three of the last four games between these two teams at Geodis Park. Should they be favored on the road in Nashville tonight? Of course not. But at nearly five-to-one, we’ll take the Lions as our underdog pick of the week.
Austin FC
ML +285
We won’t find five-to-one odds on a home team to win this week but Austin FC have the longest odds you can find among the hosts in Week 5. As always with an Austin FC pick from us, the bias warning is in effect. But if we’re going to pick on teams for potential rotation, why stop with Orlando? Austin FC swept this season series in 2025 and while they’re home underdogs for good reason, we think the fan sentiments around the Verde and Black are a bit lower than where they should be. Feel free to wait to put this one in until lineups are posted an hour before the match tonight and avoid if both Denis Bouanga and Heung-Min Son are starting, we’re going to do the same.
San Diego FC
ML -125
Sunday Night Soccer heads to San Diego this week where Real Salt Lake is in town. SDFC were eliminated from CCC in the midweek and now turn their attention fully to league play. They’ve been an extremely strong home side of late, winning seven of their last eight at home across all competitions dating back to the 2025 season. RSL on the other hand are traditionally less threatening as a road team away from the elevation and won just three of 17 road fixtures in 2025. San Diego to win.
Goal Scorers
Every week we’ll pick a few of our favorite goal scoring options in the betting market. Here are the Week 5 shouts.
Josh Sargent +235
Wessam Abou Ali +160
Martin Ojeda +290
Marco Pasalic +370
Emmanuel Latte Lath +195
Mateusz Bogusz +390
Dor Turgeman +240
Paxten Aaronson +390
Facundo Torres +320
Joseph Rosales +750
Timo Werner +340
German Berterame +265
Kelvin Yeboah +215
Kristoffer Velde +235
Gabriel Pec +230
Zavier Gozo +425
Results
Last Week: +5.98 U
2026 Season: -23.39 U
